HelloFresh is no longer allowed to claim to be the world’s first climate-neutral meal box. A ruling by a German court could also have far-reaching consequences for other companies that “offset” their emissions.
No evidence
A lot of companies that call themselves climate-neutral, or strive towards it, reduce their footprint by artificially offsetting their carbon emissions by buying “emission credits”. They do this for example by giving money to forestry projects in Africa: the carbon captured by the trees there is deducted to achieve “zero emissions”.
German environmental organisation Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) filed several lawsuits against this common practice, including against companies such as Netto, Danone and HelloFresh. The organisation calls it misleading and false, an argument that the Berlin district court has now followed in the case of HelloFresh.
HelloFresh is no longer allowed to claim that it is climate-neutral, because the company could not sufficiently prove that the purchased carbon credits have the claimed success. According to the court, companies should examine more carefully whether the purchased certificates actually do what they promise. Until now, the meal box supplier bought emission credits from the Kenyan forest protection project Kasigau Corridor, which has a Verified Carbon Standard certificate.
“Dubious”
“More and more courts are confirming that offsetting carbon emissions does not entitle products, services or even entire companies to be called ‘climate neutral’. This is all the more true if the carbon credits come from dubious projects and have been acquired through a completely unregulated carbon market without uniform standards”, DUH’s Jürgen Resch told marketing magazine W&V.
HelloFresh risks fines of 250,000 euros or six months in jail if it still claims to be climate neutral or that the company offsets its direct carbon emissions 100 %. HelloFresh itself had already decided not to make any more of such climate-related claims. The company is also considering phasing out its emissions offsets in the long term. Budgets could then go to alternative projects in conservation and environmental protection.
